While browsing through the e-mails and letters which have been accumulating during my recent vacation, certain concerned letters immediately caught my attention.
Then I started reading on the Internet what has been happening in Switzerland in the last days concerning this very topic. Does that which I see there have anything to do with what I like to talk about, namely why I am convinced that Christianity has much to tell and to give to the society? In this whole discussion, was there not a false [mathematical minus-] sign placed? I as a representative of the Church am not against, but in favor of something!
I do not want to be against men, but I want to be available for them, because God also has given everything for man, even His life; that is what the Cross stands for. That is why I do want to add a plus-sign in front of the Bible passages which are now being intensely discussed: admittedly, they are opposed to sexual commerce among people of the same sex and not to homosexuality, as such, which was not yet known in those ancient days; therefore such Bible passages can barely be quoted with reference to a judgment of today's questions!
Thus, in spite of the language which is today barely understandable any more, I can at least see in these Bible passages that there is the intention to support the family and a sexuality which is lived in it [in the family]. As a matter of fact, for the Catholic Church marriage and the family are still the foundations of human society and count among the most precious goods of humanity.
That is why the Church puts a plus-sign in front of a sexuality which is lived in a partnership, in fidelity and with responsibility, and which is also open to children — and that is why she has difficulty with the assessment of homosexuality because of this openness to the giving of life.
